For the last three years, islander and origami artist Alice Larson has fulfilled a heart-driven mission to hand out origami hearts to strangers on Valentine’s Day. She’s traveled to a different city every year — Tacoma, Port Townsend and Portland to date — where she walks around to stores and on the street handing out packets with 10 of her handmade hearts along with this tailored statement:

“My name is Alice Larson, and I’ve made these origami hearts. I’d like you to take one for yourself, and tomorrow on Valentine’s Day, please give the rest to people who need a heart.”

Larson has filled her requisite 50 packets, each with 10 hearts, but this year, she cannot travel and hopes islanders will come to her on Feb. 13.

“I have this great gallery — Island Paper Chase — and I won’t be able to go anywhere on the 13th,” Larson said. “So, I thought what if people come to me?”

Her plan is to open the doors of her gallery from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 13, and give the bags of hearts to the first 50 people who show up. She hopes they will continue her tradition of handing out the hearts to strangers on Valentine’s Day.

“I will tell them to go forth and do good things,” Larson said.

Larson’s first random act of distributing hearts grew out of a visit to Washington D.C. several years ago. As she traveled around the capital using the city’s Metro services, Larson would fold paper cranes.

Sometimes she left them on a seat; other times she gave them to whomever watched her fold the crane, which is when she noticed people’s reactions.

“You hand someone something (like the crane), and their face lights up,” Larson said. “I thought, this is fun, and it has been so much fun to do.”

Islander Peter Ray has traveled with Larson to video tape people’s reactions, but after awhile the duo discovered that the point for them was not who folks gave the hearts to or where the hearts ended up.

“The story for us,” Larson said, “is all in the giving them away.”